Hopefully by now you are finished (or almost finished) with your analysis of a formal and an informal assessment. Reflect on your work to identify (and describe) at least three strategies that you use (or try) in your own classroom to learn from formal assessments and have your students learn from formal assessments.
1. Hand out a "reflection sheet" to the students. This allows the students to reflect back and voice their opinion on the assessment (particulary when the assessment was a project). On the reflection sheet, students can clearly say what they thought of the project. What they liked/didn't like about it. What they would do differently next time etc. This not only is a good way for the students to feel that their opinion matters but also for me to learn how successful my assessment was.
2. Address misconceptions. If the assessment includes "concept questions" and several students answer the questions wrong (and their incorrect responses are similar), then that provides me with an opportunity to address the misconceived understandings that those students might hold. Clearly I either wasn't precise enough when teaching the concepts or the students held strong prior knowledge about it that was misleading. Addressing the misconceptions after the assessment would allow to clear those misunderstandings.
3. Review the whole assessment as a class. This again is a form of making sure that each and every student has a chance to review their answers and be able to ask questions and clarify any confusions. Also, this review session could be valuable as a mini lesson to wrap up several weeks of learning.
1. Hand out a "reflection sheet" to the students. This allows the students to reflect back and voice their opinion on the assessment (particulary when the assessment was a project). On the reflection sheet, students can clearly say what they thought of the project. What they liked/didn't like about it. What they would do differently next time etc. This not only is a good way for the students to feel that their opinion matters but also for me to learn how successful my assessment was.
2. Address misconceptions. If the assessment includes "concept questions" and several students answer the questions wrong (and their incorrect responses are similar), then that provides me with an opportunity to address the misconceived understandings that those students might hold. Clearly I either wasn't precise enough when teaching the concepts or the students held strong prior knowledge about it that was misleading. Addressing the misconceptions after the assessment would allow to clear those misunderstandings.
3. Review the whole assessment as a class. This again is a form of making sure that each and every student has a chance to review their answers and be able to ask questions and clarify any confusions. Also, this review session could be valuable as a mini lesson to wrap up several weeks of learning.